This woman has refused His request. She is rude and insolent. But Jesus knows how to deal with her. He doesn’t give her a lecture or offer some theological doctrine. He just appeals to her native curiosity and this creates an interest and a thirst.

Why was there this great animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews? It was because the Samaritans had the same ancestors as the Jews, but they had intermarried with people from the north, during the Asserian captivity of Israel in 721 BC. At that time, the Jews that were not taken captive were gathered to Samaria. In time they developed their own society and they even had a different place to worship. They worshipped at their synagogue on Mount Gerizim, instead of at Jerusalem. Jews treated Samaritans as low individuals and to make contact with them would make them unclean. And this attitude by the Jews, caused the Samaritans to hate them.